


(i think you're) worth holding onto

by exhaustedwerewolf



Category: The AM Archives (Podcast), The College Tapes (Podcast)
Genre: (this was supposed to be a very quick vent. what happened.), Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Canon Compliant, Crying, Damien References, Derealization, Dissociation, Domestic Fluff, Dreams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mark Bryant Gets a Hug, Mutual Pining, Neglect/Abandonment, No College Tapes Spoilers, Oliver Ritz Has Been Going to Therapy!, Oliver calls Mark Byron a few times in this fic so if that bother you you've been warned, One Shot, POV Third Person, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Self-Worth Issues, The Byrants' A+ Parenting, Tier Five References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27821779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exhaustedwerewolf/pseuds/exhaustedwerewolf
Summary: Mark awakes tearful from a bittersweet dream and can't quite hide his disorientation from Oliver, who encourages him to talk about it.
Relationships: Mark Bryant/Oliver Ritz
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	(i think you're) worth holding onto

**Author's Note:**

> title is from [soap by the oh hellos,](https://open.spotify.com/track/0FVQr7zlRnQkZubn3MKItH?si=0yh2IqOHQMalMux20mXidg) which is honestly an incredibly good song for mark/oliver
> 
> hope you enjoy!

Mark wakes up lost, writhing to consciousness with a watery intake of breath, jolting up instinctively. Shakily, he reaches up to brush sleep from the corner of his eye, and his knuckles come away damp with tears.

“Woah- Byron, take it easy,” Oliver’s voice; laced with amusement. 

Mark quickly brushes the wetness from his eyes, squinting at the sunlight streaming through the slats of the blinds. His apartment- of course- he ignores the coil of dismay and relief in his stomach. When he twists around on the couch, he can see Oliver standing at the kitchenette counter, his edges gilded in the dawn light, hands curled around a mug. Golden clouds of steam swell from the rim. The corner of Oliver’s mouth quirks into a cautious smile.

“Alright there, sleeping beauty?” he chuckles, but there’s concern underneath.

“How long was I…?” Mark’s voice comes out sleep-soft, and he clears his throat, abruptly self-conscious- hazy-eyed and mussy-haired as he is. Oliver, somehow, is already fully-dressed, while Mark still has yesterday’s tee hanging off him- he flushes and tugs clumsily at the neck of it where it’s started to slip down, but when he looks back up at Oliver he’s already turned back to the counter.

“Since last night,” his response is flat, punctuated by the sound of cutlery clinking against ceramic. 

_Of course,_ Mark thinks, watching Oliver’s back, feeling stupid even as the menthol sting of dissapointment sets in. He allows himself a moment to sag back into the couch and drape his forearm across his face to block out the sunlight.

A shadow falls across him, and he emerges from behind his arm.

“You fell asleep in- what- the first twenty minutes of the movie?” Oliver says, arching an eyebrow as he holds out the mug- Mark catches the rich scent of coffee on the air. “Did you tire yourself out begging to choose?”

“Very funny,” Mark says drowsily, reaching up for the mug with a murmured; “Thanks.” 

Their fingers fumble for a moment at the handle. Oliver glances away with a pointed cough and Mark quickly drops his gaze to the mug, concentrating firmly on the swirls in the foam and not on the way his pulse just fluttered as if he was in middle school or something. He brings it to his lips and takes a cautious sip, and finds himself blinking in surprise at the flavour. There’s a mild caramel-sweetness to it, and a subtler, brighter flavour- a hint of what might be vanilla? Mark glances up at Oliver just in time to see his eyes cut away. 

“It’s maple syrup,” he grumbles, and Mark can’t quite tell but it seems like maybe he’s being- _shy?_ “Since you’re _cutting down on your sugar_ , or whatever,” His voice slips into a mocking intonation for a moment. And then, he hesitates, adding; “You don’t have to drink it, if-” 

“No, it’s- it’s good,” Mark interrupts, with a smile, basking in the warmth leaking into his fingers from the mug, and beginning to smoulder in his chest at the thought that Oliver has actually bothered to remember. “Thanks, Oliver. Seriously.”

Oliver drops down heavily onto the couch beside him, and Mark takes another sip to hide his grin. For a few moments, neither of them speaks- Mark takes the time to slowly wake up, watching the glow of the dust caught in the shafts of morning light, the curl of the steam, but he can’t quite get a grip on the here and now. There’s a permeating, sleepy vagueness clinging to him like mist, and he must be oddly quiet, because he catches Oliver watching him. His expression is weirdly serious for so early in the morning, even for Oliver, and Mark summons a laugh reflexively.

“What?” he says, elbowing Oliver teasingly. “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?” Oliver’s frown only deepens.

“Did you?” he asks, and when Mark’s smile falters, Oliver sighs and taps the frames of his glasses. “Your eyes are still red, you know.”

Mark winces. 

“Thought maybe you hadn’t noticed,” he laughs weakly, scrubbing at his eyelids again with his free-hand, pointlessly now. Oliver doesn’t return the smile. 

“Byron,” he says, voice stuck somewhere between irritated and imploring, and Mark’s grip tightens on the handle of the mug.

He’s standing in an almost-room, not his apartment but not _not_ his apartment- nebulous in that way unique to dreamspaces, both familiar and foreign. There’s the artificial lemony scent of the wax polish his mother used, the give of his own carpeted floors, the strange staleness of the air in Tier Five.

“I’m scared,” he says, and he’s crying into his mother’s shoulder, can feel the warmth of his own tears soaking into the knit of her sweater, her arms encircling him. 

“I’m so proud of you,” she says, or maybe she doesn’t, but he _knows_ it, in that strange way of dreams, where impossible convictions seem as natural, as reliable as the boast of your own heartbeat. Her hand cradling his head, as if he was little again, and then his father steps into the embrace, and Mark is _shaking-_ why is he shaking?

“We’re with you, you know that,” He says, like it’s obvious, and for a short and sacred second, it is, even as there’s something wrong, or something _should_ be wrong- “We won’t let them touch you.”

“They’ll have to go through us first,” She agrees, and Mark sobs in relief-

“Mark. _Mark_ ,” Oliver is saying, and Mark glances up at him blankly. “You still with me?”

“Yeah,” he says, even as he lists things off in his head. The couch, the dust, Oliver… the muted rush of morning traffic, his own unsteady breathing, Oliver’s voice… “Yeah, I’m-” A shiver spiders under his skin- “I’m here.”

Oliver regards him quietly for a few moments; Mark feels his grip tightening on the handle of the mug.

“Bad dream?” Oliver asks, finally, and Mark feels the first pinprick of relief.

“Yeah,” Mark says, as casually as he can, turning away from Oliver to set the mug down on a stray coaster. “Close enough.” But when he looks back up, Oliver’s eyes are still fixed on him. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What?” Mark says, a little defensively.

“Oh come on, don’t give me that.” Annoyance creeps into Oliver’s voice. When Mark doesn’t reply, he rolls his eyes. “Byron, you’re always telling me it’s better to talk about this kind of stuff. How about you take your own advice?” 

Pressing his nails hard into his palms, Mark half-wishes it had been a nightmare. A nightmare would be easier to explain if nothing else, easier to understand. At least the surging tide of fear would be simple, would swallow up the ruins lurking under his skin, erode away these old inscriptions he can’t- _shouldn’t_ \- hope to decipher.

“I just… I thought it was real for a moment.”

Under the wrong stars, he’d dreamt himself back to the modern day more times than he could count. The echo of a camera shutter, of his keys jangling in the lock, of his sister’s laughter, all haunted him, left him lying in the dead grass, straining to hear spectres.

And then there had been Sam, choked awake by her calls for her parents, bolting upright beside him, hand outstretched toward the door. They’d looked in on her, she confessed to Mark- every night, through the gap in the door before they’d turned out their light, and in her sleep she’d still see ghosts wearing their faces, haunting the hallways. 

Even Damien had smiled in his sleep. Sometimes.

Mark blinks the image away. Oliver is watching him, motionless. Waiting.

“Remember…” Hesitantly, Mark licks his lips. “Remember when you’d dream that you- that you saw the sun, or you-” His voice dies for a moment, and he has to stop, to concentrate again on the graze of the fabric of the couch against his palms, the press of the floor underfoot- “And then you’d wake up and you’d remember where you actually were?”

As soon as the words pass his lips, the sharpness of regret sears in every sinew- for the way that Oliver’s shoulders tighten, for turning the frantic electricity of his own broken brain into a tangible thing, if only the ugly judder of atoms. Years later, it lingers- the fear that at any moment he will open his eyes, to meet his own haggard gaze in a one-way mirror, to the slow spin of a starry-sky hundreds of years away from anyone who’s ever loved him, to the endless turn of a motel ceiling fan, and a dizzying dread he can’t quite hold onto for long enough to make sense of. If anyone he loves is as intimate as he is with that lurking, poisonous doubt, it’s Oliver- and Mark’s throat goes tight at the thought that he will turn away, but instead, he nods.

“I remember,” his eyes are downcast now, his voice hushed, but Mark can almost feel Oliver’s attention is on him; if he had atypical empathy right now, he knows it would fill the space of his small apartment, a heavy, ochre stillness. “Those were- those were always the ones I couldn’t stand.” 

“Yeah,” Mark’s voice comes out brittle, and shit, he’s welling up again. A shaky sob tears from his throat, and he tries to smother the sound with his forearm, well aware of how pathetic he looks even as his shoulders shake. “Sorry, I’m being- God knows they’re not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” A toneless laugh bubbles from him, “I don’t- I shouldn’t even _care_ -” He cuts himself off with a tearful gasp.

“Breathe, Mark-” Oliver says, and he does, or he tries to, God, he always _tries,_ but it’s like his lungs are as broken as everything else about him-

“Why couldn’t they just- why don’t they love me?” he chokes, and then he’s crying in silence, heels of his hands pressed uselessly to his eyelids. He’s always been a crier, always been too sensitive _,_ ever since he was a kid, and it’s never stopped being fucking embarrassing. It took Joanie telling him they could still be panic attacks if you were crying for him to even know that’s what they were, and sometimes it’s impossible to disentangle the two, the piercing pressure in his skull and the breathlessness and-

“ _Mark._ ”

Mark’s looks up, vision blurred- Oliver has his hand outstretched like he wants to touch him, but isn’t sure if he should. Mark swallows, and the pain in his throat is scalpel-sharp, but he manages a jerky nod, and stretches out a hand to Oliver, biting back more tears.

“Sorry,” Mark manages airlessly, and Oliver’s hand finds his. “I- don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Oliver’s laces his fingers firmly with Mark’s. He can feel the warmth of them, the gentle scrape of his nails, solid and real and reassuring.

“Nothing is… _wrong_ with you,” Oliver says slowly, and before Mark can open his mouth to tell him he didn’t mean it like that, he’s gripping Mark’s hand. “You know this isn’t your fault, right? You didn’t do anything to deserve how they treated you.”

“I know,” his voice trembles. “I know, but-” And suddenly he’s holding his breath again, can feel the wave cresting-

“Oh, buddy,” Oliver’s voice goes soft, and Mark crumbles. Whether Oliver pulls him into a hug, or he just can;t hold himself up any longer, he doesn’t know, but somehow he finds himself in Oliver’s arms, his fingers anchored into the fabric of his shirt, and he can’t gulp down the sobs anymore.

(For now, he doesn’t- _can’t-_ care.)

Mark cries himself out. He cries until the salt of his tears and his spit mixes bitterly with the aftertaste of the coffee, cries until he feels sick, until the convulsing gasps that wrack him leave him aching. Oliver stays, and doesn’t let go. He doesn’t try to say anything else- just stays, and cards his fingers through Mark’s hair, and it’s more than enough. More than Mark could have had the audacity to ask for.

At last, he gets his breath back. Oliver produces a tissue, seemingly from thin air, startling a wobbly smile out of Mark as he takes it, but he can’t quite look at Oliver. Now that it’s over, he’s left with just the throb in his head and his heart, the shame thick and sickly in his throat. He opens his mouth, but Oliver interrupts;

“Don’t.”

“What?” he protests, and then cringes a little at the hoarseness of his own voice.

“You’re either about to act like you can try and play this off with a joke, or say you’re _sorry-_ ” Oliver begins, sternly.

“I was not _-_ ” Mark objects. Oliver just stares at him dubiously, and Mark groans and buries his face in his hands. “Okay, maybe- but- this shouldn’t even matter, and- _God_. This is just really fucking embarassing.”

“Byron, come on.” At the sudden quietness of Oliver’s voice, Mark looks up through his fingers. Oliver still has his arms around him, despite the tear stains in his shirt, Mark realises. “It’s… it’s me.”

Mark smiles despite himself.

“Yeah, I- I know,” he admits, and leans into Oliver’s side for a moment, takes a deep breath. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t absolutely hate this if it _was_ you, though.” He mutters into his shoulder, and he feels it when Oliver’s laugh ripples through his chest.

“Okay, so you might not be wrong,” he admits, and then with a steadying breath; “Seriously, though Byron, it doesn’t have to- it can matter to you. Even if it feels like it shouldn’t. And you can alwaystalk to me. It doesn’t- it doesn’t have to be right now, but it’s… important to me. That you know that.”

Mak draws back with a gleam in his eye.

“ _Someone’s_ getting a sticker at therapy this week,” 

“Oh, shut up,” Oliver grins.

“You know you love me,” Mark says, without thinking, and then his breath catches. Oliver stiffens, and Mark is still practically in Oliver’s _lap_ -

And then the silence is broken by a long, drawn-out gurgle from Oliver’s stomach. He flushes bright red as Mark abruptly dissolves into laughter, but within a few heartbeats it seems like he can’t help but laugh a little, too. The sound of their voices, warm and bright and slightly too loud, is realer than anything has been all morning. 

“God, I needed that,” Mark says when he’s mostly recovered, stretching his arms above his head. “Alright. Breakfast?”

“I… have no objections,” Oliver says a little primly, and Mark stands.

“I think we’ve more than earned some waffles,” he says with a wink, and Oliver rolls his eyes fondly.

A few minutes later, they’re in the kitchenette together- doing their best to at least pretend like they’re trying to step around one another in the crowded space. Mark opens the lid of the waffle iron, and breathes the sweet-scented cloud that drifts out with satisfaction. 

“Oliver?” Mark murmurs, almost quietly enough that the hum of his crappy coffee machine drowns him out.

“Hm?” Oliver responds, turning to Mark with a fresh cup of coffee in hand.

“Thanks,” Mark says, and lets their hands meet when he takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> edit 15/12/20: fixing a few typos!
> 
> thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed! this is a promptfill for 'neglect/abandonment' as part of [@badthingshappenbingo](https://badthingshappenbingo.tumblr.com/)  
> as always you can find me on tumblr [@exhaustedwerewolf](https://exhaustedwerewolf.tumblr.com/) \- my ask is always open if you have any requests or if you just want to chat!


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